The teachers’ contract expired at the end of March. In June, they voted 3,992 to 333 to go on strike if an agreement was not reached by September 20. That day all teachers in public schools, attended by 45,000 students, walked out.

On October 29 the state mediator put forward a contract proposal and the union negotiating committee called off the strike until the results of the vote came in. Teachers voted the offer down by a 4,293-276 margin, and the strike resumed.

Gunnhildur Ólafsdóttir, who works at Hagaskóli school in Reykjavík, pointed to the unity of the teachers seen in the outcome of that vote, and the broad solidarity they had received. “There was much more support in the community than 10 years ago,” she told the Militant, referring to a six-week strike in 1995.

On October 20 some 3,000 teachers marched down the main shopping street in Reykjavík and held an outdoor meeting. Teachers came from around the country for the spirited action. A contingent from the Students Association at the Iceland University of Education (Kennaraháskólinn) also participated. Two days later, strikers protested in the town of Akureyri as the minister of education, Thorgerdur Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, was on a visit there.

On November 13, a bill declaring the strike illegal was rushed through parliament. Introducing it the previous day, Prime Minister Halldór Ásgrímsson of the Progressive Party said that by not solving the dispute the municipalities and the teachers were basically “referring the case to the government.” He added, “It is important that the wage policy of the state and municipalities doesn’t start a wage-price spiral that would lead to increased inflation and a decrease in buying power.” His comments played on the myth commonly used by the rulers to whip up anti-union sentiment, claiming wage increases cause price hikes.

The opposition parties did not protest procedural changes to speed up the passing of the bill, in sharp contrast to the factionalism that has marked parliamentary debates on other issues in the past year. While all opposition parties voted against the bill, Össur Skarphédinsson, chairman of the Social Democratic Alliance, said, “I understand fully that this knot had to be solved by some means.” The back-to-work measure passed parliament 28 to 21, with 14 members of parliament absent.

Teachers protested in front of parliament November 12 as the bill was being presented. Many held or wore signs with footprints to symbolize the government trampling on their rights. Protests continued the next morning, as the bill was being passed. The first school day, Monday, November 15, about 85 percent of teachers didn’t show up for work. School authorities called on parents to stand for the teachers the next day. Half the teachers returned to work on Tuesday and the remainder were on the job the next day. With the strike over and arbitration looming, on November 17 union officials signed a contract that is largely based on the mediator’s earlier proposal.

Siggerdur Ólöf Sigurdardóttir, a teacher at Hjallaskóli in the town of Kópavogur, described the first days back on the job after parliament declared the walkout illegal. “The worst part was on Tuesday, when half the teachers showed up and some stood in for those who were still at home,” Sigurdardóttir said. “It was very bad for unity.”

Press reports from around the country have indicated that a number of teachers are resigning in protest. In the town of Fáskrúdsfjördur all 16 teachers have turned in resignation notices.

The new contract includes an immediate pay increase of 5.5 percent, annual pay raises of 2.25 percent to 3 percent over the life of the four-year contract, and lump sum payments of 130,000 kronur ($2,060) now and 75,000 kronur ($1,200) next July. An additional pay increase of 9 percent in August 2005 will cover a reduction of the hated “wage pot,” the monthly amount available to each principal to award selective raises to teachers at the principal’s discretion.

The number of classes per week will be reduced from 28 to 27 in August of next year and to 26 in 2007. Finnbogi Sigurdsson, chairman of the Association of Teachers in Primary and Lower Secondary Schools, and a member of the negotiating committee, told Fréttabladid, the most widely circulated daily here, that although the majority of teachers accepted the contract, they were not at all happy, and many had done it to avoid arbitration.

Teachers had demanded an immediate pay raise of 13.5 percent to be followed by annual increases of up to 3 percent.

After the contract had been reached, Independence Party MP Einar Oddur Kristjánsson angered teachers when he said the contract gave them way too much. The agreement was a “break of pattern that could easily sink this society, could destroy overnight the real wage increase that has been created here for a decade and a half, make wage earners in Iceland poor, and put them in disarray,” he said. Kristjánsson is the former chairman of the employers’ organization, and one of the main architects of the “national reconciliation” of 1990—an agreement between the state, employers, and unions, with the latter agreeing to a near wage freeze for three years.

Morgunbladid, one of the main bourgeois dailies here, is among the big-business media that have used the strike to popularize calls for the privatization of the public school system. “Teachers would be in a much stronger position vis-à-vis independent schools in competition than with the current centralized apparatus of the municipalities, which effectively ensures that all teachers go hungry,” the paper said.

Sigurdardóttir, the teacher in Kópavogur, responded that privatization would mean more social inequalities, which are already growing.  
 
 
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